Chip rankings: Intel had highest share in over 10 years

SAN FRANCISCO—Intel Corp. accounted for 15.6 percent of the overall semiconductor market in 2011, as brisk sales of its core chips and the acquisition of Infineon AG's wireless chip business unit helped the No. 1 chip vendor achieve its highest share of the overall chip market in more than 10 years, according to market research firm IHS iSuppli.

"Intel in 2011 captured the headlines with its major surge in growth," said Dale Ford, head of electronics and semiconductor research for IHS, in a statement. "The company’s rise was spurred by soaring demand for its PC-oriented microprocessors, and for its NAND flash memory used in consumer and wireless products."

Intel's sales grew by 20.6 percent in 2011, the highest level of growth among the top 20 semiconductor vendors with the exceptions of Qualcomm Inc. and On Semiconductor Corp., each of which saw high levels of growth based on a combination of organic expansion and key acquisitions, IHS said.

In recent years, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. had been getting closer to overtaking Intel and becoming the No. 1 chip supplier. But in 2011, Intel lengthened its lead over Samsung, which accounted for 9.2 percent of overall chip sales, unchanged from 2010, IHS said.

Based on the final numbers, IHS said the chip market grew by a paltry 1.3 percent in 2011, down from an earlier estimate by the firm of 1.9 percent growth. A sequential decline of 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 pulled the full-year results down, IHS said.

Qualcomm grew 41.6 percent in 2011 to became the sixth largest chip vendor by sales, up from ninth in 2010, IHS said. Qualcomm accounted for 3.3 percent of overall chip sales, just behind No. 5 player Renesas Electronics Corp., which had 3.4 percent, according to IHS.

On Semi moved to No. 18 in chip sales in 2011, up from No. 26 in 2010, the largest jump of any vendor in the top 25, IHS said. Light-emitting diode (LED) maker Nichia Corp ranked No. 23 in chip sales in 2011, thanks to 34 percent growth, IHS said.

In 2011, just over half of 302 chip suppliers tracked by IHS grew sales compared with 2010, IHS said.

Overall, companies headquartered in the Americas saw the greatest improvement to their semiconductor revenues among all regions, at 7.5 percent growth, IHS said. In comparison, revenue fell 7.2 percent as a whole for Japanese firms, which suffered from the impact of the 2011 earthquake, according to the firm.

WARNING TO JOB SEEKERS
Do not open microsoft word, microsoft excel,
or adobe pdf files that you receive in your
email box from indian headhunters.
Indian headhunters are using "permission
to submit forms" and "empolyment application forms"
in order to install viruses on to your PC.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT OPEN THESE
TYPES OF EMAIL ATTACHEMENTS FROM INDIAN HEADHUNTERS.
Unless, you want Indian headhunters stealing
your online passwords to your email and bank account,
downloading your personal files, and spying on
your internet traffic.
You should insist that all correspondance
are handled as regular email text. In the event
that you opened this type of document and
fill it out, you should reinstall
your computer immediately.
I had some luck reporting this problem to
microsoft and getting them to patch
microsoft office against it. However,
given that the indian headhunters have
distibuted and misdirected blame across
100's of headhunter, its unlikely they
are going to give up this bad practice
since they can deny they were responsible
for it and make somebody else take the
blame by hiding behind them.
This virus technology is thanks to the
US government hiring and training
indian contractors to study internet
viruses since many indian
contractors also moonlight as indian
headhunters that place themselves in
the job application pool first for
these types of jobs over
local American job candidates.

Interesting warning. I don't think it belongs here, but interesting still. I guess as an American citizen, I would look last to an Indian head hunter. It is never a good idea to open a document emailed to you, even from someone you know.